Earnhardt had led 47 laps when he pitted on Lap 239 but he had to hit the brakes on pit road as Casey Mears darted into his pit stall, allowing Carl Edwards to beat him off pit road.

Edwards went on to win the race while Earnhardt ended up losing a few spots to finish fifth.

“We just didn’t get the breaks on pit road,” Earnhardt said. “We kind of got boxed in and picked on (on) pit road. We could have beat him off pit road but somebody was pulling into their stall in front of us.

“I had to lift and give the spot to the 99 (of Edwards). That was the race in my opinion. … I had to stop almost and that was it. That was my opportunity to win.”

Edwards said that Earnhardt could have turned into him and wrecked everyone on pit road.

“That was hugely important. … Dale could have run me up into the wall and spun Casey out,” Edwards said. “I could tell he thought about it.

“I think he did because there was that little pause and I thought, ‘He is going to do it.’ Then he stood on the brakes and kept from tearing all the cars up. That had to be very difficult for him because we all knew that could be the race.”

During the early part of the race, it didn’t appear Earnhardt had a top-five car. He couldn’t crack the top 15 for the first third of the race but used pit strategy to get better track position at the end.

“If you got in the back, there’s so much dirty air in the back,” Earnhardt said. “It’s no different than years past. When you’re in 30th or 20th, it’s hard to do anything back there.

“The further to the front you get, the more you really see what potential your car has. We were able to get toward the front and see that we had a real good car, a top-five car.”

Track position has meant a lot in the past at Phoenix, and even with the new body styles for Cup cars this year, it still meant a lot Sunday.

“It’s hard to pass, but you can’t help that,” Earnhardt said. “If there’s something in front of you the size of the car, it’s going to be hard to get clean air on your front end.

“I don’t care what they do with the package, it’s not going to get much better. The new car has tons of great potential. … From where we brought that COT—it was a hunk of junk when we first started out with it and how far we’ve brought that thing in three years, this thing is going to be pretty awesome.”

Earnhardt said he hopes Sunday’s performance is a sign that he has a better team because he typically doesn’t run well at Phoenix. He won in 2003 and 2004 but this was his first top-five finish there in his last 16 starts.

“We were terrible here last year and the year before,” Earnhardt said. “We have a package we can work on. Maybe this can go to Richmond and run even better, we just need a little bit to win there.”